Chapter V

marihuana and social policy

A Final Comment

In this Chapter, we have carefully considered the spectrum of social and legal policy
alternatives. On the basis of our findings, discussed in previous Chapters, we have
concluded that society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on
the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the
criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating as a
means of achieving this objective. We have attempted to balance individual freedom on one
hand and the obligation of the state to consider the wider social good on the other. We
believe our recommended scheme will permit society to exercise its control and influence
in ways most useful and efficient, meanwhile reserving to the individual American his
sense of privacy, his sense of individuality, and, within the context of ail interacting
and interdependent society, his options to select his own life style, values, goals and
opportunities.

The Commission sincerely hopes that the tone of cautious restraint sounded in this
Report will be perpetuated in the debate which will follow it. For those who feel we have
not proceeded far enough, we are reminded of Thomas Jefferson's advice to George
Washington that "Delay is preferable to error." For those who argue we have gone
too far, we note Roscoe Pound's statement, "The law must be stable, but it must not
stand still."

We have carefully analyzed the interrelationship between marihuana the drug, marihuana
use as a behavior, and marihuana as a social problem. Recognizing the extensive degree of
misinformation about marihuana as a drug, we have tried to demythologize it. Viewing the
use of marihuana in its wider social context, we have tried to desymbolize it.

Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not,
in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem.

The existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social
harm engendered by the use of the drug. To replace it, we have attempted to design a
suitable social policy, which we believe is fair, cautious and attuned to the social
realities of our time.